Ron P. Jaffe/Fox(NEW YORK) -- After nine seasons, How I Met Your Mother is coming to an end with a one-hour series finale tonight.

The show’s co-creator, Carter Bays, spoke with Zap2it about the sitcom’s ending and how he found inspiration for the show from his personal life.

The mystery of who exactly the mother is in the show has been one of TV’s greatest unknowns, but Bays has known from the start. Not all shows have a clear vision of how they are supposed to end, but How I Met Your Mother is a different story and the ending is about to be revealed.

“This is the ending we conceived when we conceived the show 10 years ago,” Bays says. “It’s what we’ve been steadfastly writing towards ever since.”

The show’s co-creator revealed in the interview that part of the show is based on his life and his experiences. When the sitcom first started, Bays related to the character Ted the most because both of them were single. Later on, Bays married and started to relate to his characters differently.

“Now, I feel much more like Marshall and Lily, although there is a lot of Ted and the Mother in my wife and I,” Bays says. “There are a few details that are taken directly from life.”

Marriage is a large aspect of the show, from Ted wanting it so badly, Lily and Marshall having it and making it work and Robin and Barney overcoming their fears of marriage together. In the end, though, Bays still doesn’t think the idea of marriage has fully come across.

“We’ve spent nine years writing about it, and I still don’t feel like we’ve come close to distilling it down,” he says. “Marriage is a series of lots of little stories.”

Bays continues: “I guess a marriage is kind of like a sitcom. You have to keep it interesting, you have to keep it fun, and there’ll be twists and turns in the plot. You have to stick with it, just keep the central cast together.”